RECENT COMMENTS BY Jacob Halbrooks

Columns by Jacob Halbrooks

The good news failed to stir me. For a second I was back at the mandatory high school pep rally, listening to Master of Puppets on my walkman as the rest of the students screamed and cheered on the football team. I knew I was supposed to celebrate, but it just didn't feel right. In fact, watching it all made me feel somewhat embarrassed.

Libertarian natural law theorists have traditionally focused most of their effort on solving the property rights of any given situation. Unfortunately, such focus has come at the detriment to a coherent theory of appropriate punishment for those who violate the rights of others. Libertarians generally have much more to say on the rights (or lack thereof) of children and the comatose, or what...

Whenever I tell someone I'm from Connecticut , I make sure to say I'm from eastern Connecticut . That is, I make sure they don't picture me carrying tennis rackets around and tying sweaters around my neck. They do that out in western Connecticut ; you know, where all the insurance company presidents and soccer moms live. There are certain stereotypes we New Englanders have to deal with.

Occasionally a college girl will call me at home and request that I take a political poll. Unfortunately, I'm too polite to simply hang up the phone. The result is an awkward experience for all involved. She pretends that I wasn't put on the list by mistake, and I pretend that there's a 'none of the above' option for every question. It finally ends when she asks whether I'm a Republican,...

'What's in the box?'
'Pain.'
So it was that the Reverend Mother tested young Paul Atreides in Frank Herbert's seminal masterpiece Dune. 'You will feel pain in this hand within the box. Pain. But! Withdraw the hand and I'll touch your neck with my gom jabbar-- the death so swift it's like the fall of a headsman's axe.'

Sometimes I don't know whether to call myself a libertarian or an anarchist. Both have their advantages and disadvantages, mostly owing to public perception. Call yourself a libertarian, and you risk being disregarded as a Republican who smokes pot, a redneck or swamp Yankee gun nut (that one I can live with), or worst of all, Bill Maher. Anarchists probably have it worse. Most people think...